Investors were supportive when I decided to pivot from our game store after realizing it wasn't worth the investment, showing their confidence in our ability to figure things out.

We were confident about our startup, thinking we would get a lot of PR and funding, and we did receive significant media attention and raised $1.2 million in funding.

We raised our initial funding through a friends-and-family round, ensuring that only those who understood our vision could invest.

We launched our product to friends and family to test our processes and pricing, which helped us refine our approach and led to referrals.

To gain the trust of early customers, we initially targeted fellow companies in Y Combinator who were also new and had never paid themselves, which was a strategic move to build our initial customer base.

I decided to pursue my startup idea because it kept gaining momentum, despite the challenges I faced. I set up my startup as a four-week test to validate my idea without high expectations.

The skepticism among the founders led us to seek customer feedback early, which was crucial in determining the viability of our product idea.

After launching our first product, we received positive feedback from investors, but I was unaware that we were about to face a long period of struggle.

We self-funded VMware initially, allowing only immediate family to invest, and later sought angel investors who were technically sophisticated and understood our vision.